Praveen Moman

Co-founder and Managing Director of Volcanoes Safaris

Praveen Moman had the good fortune to be born in Uganda, at the heart of the African continent, in an extended family that was part of the pioneering and adventuring Asian community that was the forefront of opening up East and Central Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He grew up on safari under the big African sky before the winds of change brought his family to Britain when he was a teenager. After a career as a political and policy adviser in the British Government and the European Union, he returned to his African roots by co-founding Volcanoes Safaris in 1997 with Yusuf Mulima Mubiru.

Under his guiding vision, Volcanoes Safaris has been at the forefront of reviving tourism in Uganda and Rwanda, after the conflict in the region had settled down. Today the company is recognized for the unique great ape eco-tourism model it has created, centred around the threatened gorilla and chimpanzee populations of the western rift valley. Praveen has led the Volcanoes team that created the company’s eco-lodges near the great ape parks. The eco-lodges are sensitive to the post-conflict context, the culture of local communities and the need to use resources in a sustainable way and have empowered local people to manage them. Volcanoes Safaris is the only safari company to be a signatory to the UN Kinshasa Declaration on Saving the Great Apes.

Educated at London and Cambridge University in the UK, Praveen is a trustee of Seva Mandir UK, a respected Indian charity working with rural communities in Rajasthan, India and is a former VSO volunteer in Jamaica and a Robert Schuman Scholar. He is on the Advisory Board of the Association of Adventure Travel Trade Association in the USA and Pure Life Experiences and the Bodhi Tree Foundation.